


the system

by atlas_oulast



Series: Be More Quarantine Fics [3]
Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz, Legend Series - Marie Lu, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Police, Alternate Universe - Space, F/M, Mystery, Slow Burn, it’s actually loosely based off of legend & star wars, light gore, the Squip is the sherrif
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:07:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23506609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlas_oulast/pseuds/atlas_oulast
Summary: Jeremy Heere is an officer in the Pyros Police Department, working in the department head in Kian, the capital city of the planet of Pyros.The Yellow Jade is an infamous do-gooder crime gang of street rats and starving people.Jeremy is an undercover agent to infiltrate the gang and capture their leaders.For the Be More Quarantine Challenge.
Relationships: Christine Canigula/Jeremy Heere, Jeremy Heere & Michael Mell, Thalia McCarthy & Jeremy Heere
Series: Be More Quarantine Fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1682470
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> i used all the prompts for this round, 11 previous prompts, and 7 special prompts. lord have mercy on my soul.

“Sherrif?” Christine asked, knocking on his press room door timidly.

She was a reporter from the Pyros Suns, a local newspaper in the city of Kian, the capital of the planet of Pyros, there to interview him about the recent capture of a man who had murdered an old women last month, fled, and was eventually chased back where he was captured after a shootout with the cops.

The sheriff looked up at her, and nodded her in. Christine ducked her head and stepped inside, sitting down at the seat across from him at his press relations desk, feeling like a little kid in the principal’s office.

Sheriff J. E. Campbell looked gruff and slightly bored, but answered her questions about the suspect quietly and some more about comparable criminals he had seen in his 12 years as sheriff of Pyros. He looked like a warm and friendly neighbourly type old man, a thick grey beard on his pale yet freckled skin, kind, sparkling brown eyes, with wide shoulders and a beer gut, but overall he could be just the grandfather down the street.

“You know, I have something for you to put in your story that’s pretty interesting, along with the stuff about Brandon Newman,” Sheriff Campbell said slowly.

“Mhm?” Christine asked, looking up at him from her notes, peering up through the tops of her glasses.

“I’m retiring at the end of October... they haven’t named my replacement yet, so that’s why they haven’t let it hit the media yet. But hey, they’re toying with firing me because of the shootout, so let them hear the media rage over _that_ one,” he said gruffly, yet conspiratorially.

“Oh! Yes, that’s definitely going in... perhaps I could do a whole story on that as well!” Christine said excitedly. She was a junior reporter at the Pyros Suns, who had been given this as her first semi big opportunity, and being the first to report Sheriff Campbell stepping down would be even bigger.

“There’s not much to tell, kid... I’m turning sixty five in two days, so I can claim my retirement benefits, I’ve planned a nice warm retirement for years now, the department’s well aware it’s happening... but the shootout makes us look bad. Makes us look brutish, crude. Or at least, that’s what the department thinks, and they’re thinking about just firing me. Severance may or may not be less costly for them than me retiring with benefits, and this is a pretty good excuse to do it.”

Christine ducked her head down and scribbled down what he said, her handwriting messy and all over the place.

“This is definitely a story in itself,” Christine said, a big smile spreading on her lips. Oh, shit, she had the red lipstick on today, and he could probably see the pink areas...

“You look like you need the break, kid,” Sheriff Campbell said gruffly but kindly. “You have the overworked mole look about you.”

Christine knew he was probably right. That morning, her hair had all frizzed up, and she had managed to get it all in a messy-ish bun that looked pretty well put together, hair sprayed the shit out of it, and considered it a crisis averted.

But of course, she had to run through the rain to get from her car to inside, and then wait in it when her car battery had died in the parking lot. Cassidy Andrews was kind enough to jump her car, but it took awhile, and at the end, the hairspray had all washed out. A the messy ponytail with bumps and loose ends and the hastily applied lipstick was the best she could do before her appointment.

Besides her messy ponytail, she was wearing a slate grey pencil skirt and a stick straight white blouse tucked into it, and pantyhose and black pumps. Sheriff Campbell was right, she did have the overworked secretary look about her.

“I’m sorry... my car battery died and my hair got messed up in the rain-“

Sheriff Campbell put up a hand. “It’s okay... just observing. You definitely need the break, I’m glad I got to give it to you.”

Christine smiled gracefully and nodded enthusiastically. 

“I will see to it that this story is front page news,” she grinned.

He nodded simply, silently.

_________________

Officer Jeremy M. Louis came into the police station in Kian, holding a warm cup of caf, cautious but ready for a new day. His slightly curly brown hair was hid under his sleek officer’s cap, and he was decked out in his full blue uniform, blue pants, black shirt with golden buttons and his name tag, revealing him as J. M. Louis. 

Management required everyone to wear their semi formal uniforms at all times unless otherwise instructed, which was a pain. Luckily, they didn’t care about his silver framed glasses over his blue eyes, which was nice. He couldn’t do contacts, they bothered him way too much.

But inside the massively tall, sleek, simple shining silver obelisk that was the police headquarters of the planet of Pyros, it was nothing but chaos.

“What, what happened?” Jeremy asked the nearest person, one of the secretaries. Myra Syvenson, her name was. Twenty seven years and four months old, pale skin, small green eyes, short red hair in a severe bun, very tall for a woman, 5’11. That day she was wearing a short blue skirt, a puffy green shirt, and five inch purple heels, making her more incredibly tall than she already was.

“Someone leaked Sheriff Campbell’s possible firing, they leaked it to the Suns,” Myra said hastily, before hurrying off to attend to something else.

Jeremy proceeded relatively calmly to the elevator, not alarmed at all. He didn’t see what the big deal was... maybe Sheriff Campbell didn’t like it, but Jeremy couldn’t care less. 

Truth be told, he’d be more than happy to see Sheriff Campbell be taken down.

Sheriff Campbell was a brute, unafraid to use horribly cruel tactics to cut down on all crime. Pyros was a relatively peaceful planet usually, but after a planetary recession a couple years ago, the crime rate had skyrocketed, so the nobility chose to build an obelisk three hundred paces tall, to send a message to the populace.

Well, they also employed more people to keep the new police station running, and more officers, which helped the economy a bit, but that was besides the point.

And who did they put up at the head of this massive tower, jutting into the clear blue sky and above the clouds?

Sheriff J. E. Campbell, the son of a prominent nobleman, Hester Campbell. He would be loyal to the nobility and do their bidding.

Jeremy didn’t mind the royal family much, but it was the stupid noblemen and women that bothered him. They leeched off the royals by owning enough land to get a seat in Parliament. A lot of them didn’t even live primarily on Pyros, most lived off world, on Myrkat and Lyko, huge city planets.

Including Hester Campbell. A leech whose buying of stocks had half caused the recession a couple of years ago.

So yeah. Jeremy couldn’t care less if Sheriff Campbell left.

He stepped off the elevator on the 70th floor, second to the top. Only the highest ranking police officers worked here... and Jeremy.

Sheriff Campbell was weirdly obsessed with him... calling him the ‘future’ and yet treating him like shit, and also studying Jeremy constantly through the floor, he was sure.

Sheriff Campbell’s office was on the 71st floor, in the triangular top of the obelisk. The floors in his office were see through on his side, and white on the underside. It was not a well kept secret, the clear floor in the office.

So Jeremy had brought three flattened cardboard boxes from home one day, and taped them over his desk in a roof so the Sheriff couldn’t constantly be watching him. Plenty of officers on the floor did the same.

Sheriff Campbell called Jeremy the future, claiming he could be the next Sheriff, and yet he kept him largely to desk work. He got outside assignments occasionally, but very few.

“You hear about the leak?” 

That was Officer Thalia J. McCarthy, his best friend. She rested her head on her elbows and her elbows on Jeremy’s desk. 

She was his favourite because she was a rebel, yet a good officer. Her bright blue pixie cut was very much against regulation, and she had a strong Jersey Province accent, something she had been ‘encouraged’ to drop.

Thalia was short, 5’0, but 5’3 in her shiny black regulation boots, black titanium toed. She was twenty five years and ten months old. Thalia had medium brown skin and warm undertones, and sharp brown eyes, shade YE-12. He was perceptive, and so was she. She was his match in perceptiveness, memorising details just like he.

“Good morning to you, too,” Jeremy smiled.

“You care about it much? Cause I don’t care about it much,” she grinned. Her grin was a bit like a cat’s, which amused him to no end.

“If it gets Sheriff Campbell out I’ll throw a party,” Jeremy said indifferently.

“Yeah, I don’t get the hype. Although, everyone downstairs at PR is flipping shit, and I hear Lord Green is coming today to have a chat with Campbell.”

“That’s too bad for them.”

“Yeah, I only care if it means I have to take down my roof so we can look good. Lucky for me, I have paperwork today.”

“Yeah, you and me both.”

“How’s Olive?” Jeremy asked, not caring for the subject of Campbell.

“Olive’s great... she’s skipping to Level Seven in school,” Thalia said. Olive was her daughter, nine years old and a sharp yet adorable little kid. 

“That’s great!” Jeremy said.

“Hey, Louis! Campbell wants you in his office, at full attention,” someone called across the room.

It was Officer J. V. Dillinger, Campbell’s right hand man, a loyal follower. His cool toned dark black skin shone uncannily in the lights thanks to a layer of sweat on his face. He was tall, 6’5, wearing his uniform impeccably, feet spread the regulation one and three point five paces apart as he walked.

“On my way,” Jeremy groaned.

“You heard the man, full attention, Officer,” Thalia called jokingly, smugly, her cat’s grin on her face.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jeremy said, meeting Officer Dillinger in an aisle and walking with him to the Bullet.

The Bullet was the only way to get up to Campbell’s office, a direct elevator. You could only get to it from this room, and you had to stand under a body scanner, enter a code in the keypad that changed daily, and as scan your badge. 

The security seemed like overboard, especially since one would have to scan their pass in the elevator at the bottom and again before the doors would open up to this room.

Dillinger scanned his pass and thumbed in his code, and stepped aside. Jeremy stepped under the body scanner and did the same as Dillinger.

The body scanner flashed green at the same time as the keypad and badge scanner, and the circular doors opened, allowing the pair to step inside.

Once inside, you had to scan your badge again and thumb in another code that changed daily just to get it to go. 

Campbell’s office was on the 71st floor, but there was plenty of space and other floors between here and the top of the obelisk. The floor in the office was cleverly designed to see through and ignore the floors between the office space below and the office space above. 

As such with the floors between here and the top, the Bullet raced to the top, reportedly at the speed of a bullet, but really, it didn’t get above fifteen point three one miles an hour. The other elevators were slower, and fifteen miles an hour in an elevator _was_ fast. 

It wasn’t really named for speed, though. That was the story for lower ranking officials who would never get up here, and the public. Really, it was the Bullet because of the intricate security system and the bullets that it would fill you with if you were suspicious. Merely tranquilliser bullets, non fatal, but if you were really up to no good, it would fill you with real bullets.

After exactly one minute and twelve seconds, the Bullet glided to a stop, and required the two to scan their passes and thumb in a completely separate code from the other ones, and finally, the door glided open into the foyer of the top floor.

Campbell’s office was multi-roomed, with the foyer, a sitting room, a press room, and the office itself. 

Campbell’s personal secretary, Lara Crift, met the two at the door and silently escorted them to the sitting room, her heels clicking against the glass floor. He looked down, and caught a glimpse of what he thought was Officer Mell, another good friend of his, in the room below, as he walked.

And in there was Lord Green, and Sheriff Campbell, sitting on plush velvet sofas across from each other.

Jeremy and Jake snapped into full attention stance, arms sharply at their sides, heads pointed slightly up, and then a sharp salute.

“At ease,” Lord Green said softly.

Lord Green was the son of Duchess Claire, seventeenth in line for the throne. The top twenty in line were the highest ranking citizens of Pyros, and were required to live primarily on Pyros to retain their position. 

Lord Green, what with all the children of Duchess Claire’s cousins and siblings, and the children of those children, was more than fifty sports down the line from his mother. 

He would never rule, but because he was the son of the elderly Duchess, he was given the job as overseer of the PPD, the Pyros Police Department. 

AKA, Campbell’s boss.

“Sit, sit, please,” Lord Green said, again softly. He was soft spoken and normally quiet, but had a will of iron when needed.

He and Dillinger sat next to each other, regulation three point five eight paces apart on a lush blue sofa, part of the box of sofas the four men occupied. Their sofa was at the foot of the box, and Lord Green and Campbell were the sides, so they could look at both of them or look straight ahead.

“The leaking of Sheriff Campbell’s potentially being let go is... troubling. But that is not what we are here to discuss,” Lord Green began, finally.

“I am not going anywhere for now... proven by the fact that Lord Green and I am assigning you this job, Officer Louis. You, and you alone.”

“And of Officer Dillinger?” Jeremy said, speaking formally and matter of factly, as one was supposed to in situations like these.

“Merely the messenger. Officer Dillinger, you are dismissed,” Sheriff Campbell said.

Officer Dillinger did not look the least bit bothered, staying cool and calm and collected, in a practiced façade of indifference. At least facially. A twitching pointer finger and the subtle pulling of it by his thumb and pointer finger of the other hand in his lap, only for a moment, before he stood up, at full attention stance, and turned, sweeping out of the room in nearly perfect foot stance. His feet came within a pace of each other and Lord Green had noticed and sneered.

Officer Dillinger had expected to be part of this job.

“You have heard of the Yellow Jade crime group, have you not, Officer Louis?” Lord Green asked.

Jeremy nodded. “Yes. They are a vile group, widespread, several planets. They are intent on removing monarchies for their own personal gain, while appearing as servants of the people.”

These were not his true feelings on the matter, not at all. But he had a practiced façade, just like Dillinger. 

But his was better.

Not only focused on facial expressions and a clear, matter of fact, formal tone, but hands left formally and securely at his sides, one on the small sleeve that would hold his comm device, one on his holster. Neither of which he had on him at the moment, he had left them at his desk. No way the body scanner would have cleared those things, and he was not allowed to bring them into the Sheriff’s office, with or without a body scanner.

No, that was merely the stance he had been taught, for sitting formally, at the Pyros Police Academy. A gruelling but rewarding education.

His hands stayed motionless at his sides, his feet planted on the clear glass floor, toes pointed slightly out, his feet one and three point four paces apart. Even though they were a fraction of a point off, they stayed motionless and planted firmly, better to leave them where they were than to move them and seem like he was doubting his knowledge of protocol.

Dillinger had a façade, but he lacked discipline, could never get the sheen of sweat off his face, thick enough to hydroplane on. 

Jeremy’s façade was better.

“Yes, that is the nature of this group. I am sending you on a stealth mission to infiltrate their group and reach the top, and capture their leaders,” Lord Green stated.

Strange. Usually, Sheriff Campbell would assign this himself, with or without the presence of Lord Green.

“And the identities of their leaders are?”

“We have three wanted suspects who we suspect are their main leaders. Whom I suspect is at the top is an individual known perhaps as Quinn Flahkah, but known to the members of her group and the public as simply Jade.”

Lord Green pulled a small, circular hologram device out of a sleeve pocket. 

Left sleeve, clearly a pocket about four point one three inches from his wrist. It was a TZ-811 Holo Image Carrier. It had a memory of 93.5 Gigabytes, and was usually used for still images or very short videos. 

A silver frame around the projector, polished enough so that Jeremy could see his reflection. It was engraved with a small symbol at the exact centre of the frame on one side. The symbol was of a ruby eyed cyros, the national bird of Pyros. 

It was a small engraving, about the size of the smallest bug the PPD used, a Thyros Listener. One point five five five millimetres in height, one point two one millimetres long. Nearly one dimensional, it was so flat. Smooth, blended with any surface, nearly impossible to detect. A minuscule battery that would last ten years.

That was the size of the engraving in the hologram device.

Lord Green pressed a button on the side of it, pulling up the memory of the device and it’s most recently viewed image. Not at all a vertically challenged individual, 5’6? Possibly a woman, clothed in head to toe black, a black head covering, possibly a religious one, obscuring the face with a veil that pinned to the collar of the black shirt that was worn. 

Black PPD regulation boots were worn, which was the most interesting part of the image. They were not as shiny as regulation required, but they were unmistakably PPD boots. The black titanium toes gave it away.

The only piece of clothing worn that was not black was a yellow armband, and sewn on it was an appliqué of the symbol of the Yellow Jade. A simple, four pointed diamond shape, in Jade Green. Shade HY-225. 

“This is Jade, or J.J. This is the best image we have of her. This was taken during a raid, when she stopped to check for onlookers. We took it through one of our new invisible cameras, that can see through buildings and objects and ignore them in favour of certain targets. It is the same technology used in the floors here,” Lord Green explained.

“Indeed. I enjoy looking down at the officers below, knowing that they are working. I saw much potential in you, Officer Louis, and that is why I gave you the desk right below mine.”

When Jeremy had been assigned to the 70th floor and that particular desk, everyone on the floor had taken it upon themselves to apologise to him and wish him good luck. The nickname of that desk had long been the Death Seat, because Sheriff Campbell could look at his feet and look right at you.

It was mildly terrifying.

Jeremy simply nodded formally.

Lord Green scrolled to the next image. A shorter individual, perhaps 5’3 or 5’4, in the same uniform as Jade, down to the titanium toed PPD boots. The third image was the same, but this individual was taller, probably 5’8. 

“The second image is one they call... Kitty. We know not of a formal name for her, though we suspect a name she may have used is Nik’Ai Lythropp. The third is Ruby Merot, known to the Yellow Jade as Two. The meaning of the name, not known.”

Lord Green turned off the device and handed it to Jeremy. “Take this with you, study it, allow it to aide you in your mission. You are to tell only those you trust most about your mission, and certainly not in your workplace. You will start your assignment in three days. You must craft an assumed moniker and a story in that time.”

“Understood, my Lord.”

“A more detailed case file has been dropped off at your desk by Officer Dillinger.”

“Understood.”

“Dismissed, Officer Louis,” Lord Green said.

Jeremy stood at full attention, snapped his heels, and swept out of the room, formal and silent.

He was going to go on a little adventure.


	2. two

“Infiltrating the Yellow Jade... how intriguing,” said his mother.

His mom... Anne Louis. Cruel individual. Would get along just splendidly with Campbell.

She had divorced his father when he was three, who she claimed was abusive, but knowing how much his mom lied, he doubted he was really as bad as she made him out to be. She was the one who had pushed him to attend the Academy, pretty much forcing him to enroll once he was eligible, on his sixteenth birthday.

The next two years of his life were spent as a student at the Academy, finishing his general education, and training him to be a police officer. 

The sharp thinking, good instincts, and attention to detail were things the Academy encouraged but did not actually teach, save for a voluntary course in body language that he took. He was one of only five students in his class who took it. 

He had taken the advice of every teacher, the mantra they all preached but never taught, to think sharp and quick, to have the best instincts, and have insane attention to detail, he had taken the advice to heart and studied everything intently, learning to pick up on every detail. And his quick thinking and killer instincts? 

He already had them, thanks to Anne’s abuse of him.

The Academy was where he had met Thalia, where they had bonded over terrible parents. The Academy had almost not accepted her, because she was pregnant when she applied and had the baby in the infirmary. Olive was born and the first two years of her life were spent in the walls of the Academy.

Thalia possessed his same instincts and quick thinking, and she was his match in almost everything, despite being tiny, malnourished, and having a kid. They trained each other as much as the Academy trained them.

And the fact that he was going undercover to infiltrate an infamous gang... that was something his mother would kill him for not telling her, even if they had lived apart since he had gone to live at the Academy like every other student.

“Perhaps you are actually turning out to be something,” Anne said from the other side of the phone, voice cold and uncaring. “Though I will not be surprised if you fail.”

Jeremy did not feel good after his conversation with his mom.

But he pulled out a notebook from the drawer of his nightstand, and grabbed a pencil from the top, as well as the case file.

He opened up the skinny leather object. Inside were simple folders, labelled as ‘Documents,’ ‘Evidence,’ ‘Suspects’ and ‘Crime Scene.’

He was sitting on his bed, shoes off and thrown haphazardly on the floor. The titanium toes and bulletproof everything else was not a particularly lightweight or totally comfortable piece of footwear. Thalia had taken a knife to the insides and thinned out thick walls to make the shoes fit her better, but he didn’t have that kind of patience.

His semi formal shirt, too, was unbuttoned and shucked over his dresser, leaving him only in his plain undershirt, trousers, and regulation black socks. 

He lived alone in a small apartment in the Peridot Sector of Kian. The city was split up into sectors, but so was the rest of the planet, but Kian was the only place on the planet with multiple sectors all in one city. The Peridot Sector was mostly apartment buildings and office buildings, for the upper middle class workers of Kian. Not the ritziest neighbourhood, but certainly not the ghetto.

Before he had gone to the Academy, he had lived with his mom in the Mio Sector, twelve sectors away from the city limits of Kian and the nearest Kian sector. 

Mio was right next to Jersey Sector, where everyone had accents, including Thalia, that were generally looked down upon by the upper class of Kian, as working class and crude. Most people from Jersey who moved to Kian dropped the accent.

Mio didn’t have an accent, which Jeremy thought was kinda lame, if he was being perfectly honest. He liked the Jersey accent, thought it was cool.

Part of the stigma with the accent was the fact that Jersey was the poorest sector of Pyros, and most people from there were regarded as do nothing sloths at best and gangsters at worst. 

So most people from Jersey said they were from Mio or the other next door sector of Tyra. They were perceived as average, perfectly fine districts.

But he wondered if saying he was from Jersey would get the Yellow Jade on his side.

He’d taken a class at the Academy about accent mimicking, which had focused on accents from other planets, like the Myrkatian accent or the Lyko accent. 

But he could adopt the same principles in adopting a Jersey accent.

Some practicing in the mirror in the refresher confirmed this, and he turned on the shower and continued while he showered off the day of sitting at a desk.

After he was out, cleaned, and clothed, he went back to his notebook.

People from Jersey had either very common names, or slightly rare names. Thalia was a rarer name, and so was Joyce. McCarthy, however, was a very common surname. Her mother, though, had been named Myhra Lynyalo.

He would be better suited with an odder name, he decided, as to not be confused with anyone else. 

The name of Dyhin Lopal was selected, and the name he would initially give them, pretending not to fully trust them, would be Kell Trayvis. 

He would die his hair a bright hot pink, it wasn’t uncommon for Jersey people or Kianian street rats to have dyed hair. He would exaggerate his freckles somewhat, and put in some coloured contacts, unfortunately. Contacts were cheaper and thus more common than glasses on the poorer streets of Kian.

And of course, the PPD would supply him with a suitable outfit, and perhaps a common backpack to carry a common firearm and food and clothes in. 

He would act as a street rat, performing obvious petty theft while not getting captured to catch the attention of the Yellow Jade, and would reach out to them and ask to be part of the gang. They were a band of street rats with a do gooder attitude, he’d say he was starving and they’d take him in.

He was pretty much ready.

Hopefully this would get him a good promotion and give him something to do that wasn’t doing paperwork under Campbell’s feet.

___________________

“You’re going undercover?” Thalia asked. She was in the same position as yesterday, elbows on his desk and head resting on her hands. The difference was that she had brought him a mug of caf that morning.

“Yeah... I’m not really supposed to talk about it.”

“Gonna be pretty boring not getting to look over and see you squirm as you know Campbell is looking down at you,” Thalia teased, that all too familiar cat grin on her face, in her impeccable Jersey accent. 

He thought it was kinda cute.

Not in a romantic way, she was gay and no way would he do her, but she was just... a cute individual. Small, young, and cute, except for her hardened, tough mind.

She’d joined the force to survive. The Academy offered food and shelter after she’d escaped an abusive father, and a good salary after graduating, and she’d taken it. 

If she hadn’t joined the force, she’d be an artist. She’d shown him her paintings, told him how much she loved painting, how she’d quit her job and be an artist if it was just her and she didn’t have to think about Olive.

She was amazing, and he was very glad to call her his best friend.

“You’ll manage, you get assigned all the murders and stuff, anyway,” Jeremy replied.

“I guess... I have to go see Campbell about a new case, now that I solved the Sylomo case.”

“You solved it?” The Sylomo case was something Thalia had been working on for months, about the murder of a four year old girl, Leah Sylomo, whose body had been found hung on a street sign in the Ruby Sector, where many of the nobles lived.

It could’ve been a political thing, and the Yellow Jade had been suspected by the media, but Leah Sylomo had been a daughter of two poor factory workers in the Nightfall Sector, one of the poorest in Kian. So it didn’t make much sense.

“Yeah. Guy named Yetgel Cviss... forty year old, citizen of Tyuni. Figured it out late last night, and came here and spent the whole night writing my report. He’s the one who stabbed her to death, I finally matched the bloody shoe print to someone. It was all thanks to Emma Lytan downstairs, and the security cams she helped me tap into.” 

Thalia tapped her feet nervously in a circle, like she was embarrassed by solving a huge public murder case, or more likely, she was humble as shit and didn’t want all the credit.

“Holy shit, great job!”

“I sent in the report to Campbell this morning and he authorised me to send Juna the report and the extradition request... which I just did. Now I’m weighing the possibility of taking a nap downstairs until I have to ride Miss Bullet.”

Juna was the capital city of Tyuni, a planet about three hours at light speed away. Not a bad planet, a democracy rather than the monarchy and Parliament of Pyros, but it wasn’t uncommon for a criminal to originate from Tyuni, especially since it was so close.

“Maybe... or just load up on caf and grin and bear it, like I know you’ll do. You work too hard, McCarthy.”

“All part of the job, Louis,” Thalia smiled sadly. 

“Go knock Campbell’s socks off.”

“I’m supposed to get a pretty good bonus for solving this one... I’ll take you out when you get back from your super secret mission, Officer Louis. Loose the officer stance and your exact foot spacing or you’ll never make it out there.”

“Regulation is for feet to be pointed out at half a degree east from true north, one and three point five paces apart.” Thalia never held her feet at regulation distance. She took small, quick steps, light footed and gentle. Kinda like a cat.

“I’m well aware. I just don’t see Campbell walking around with a ruler like a strict schoolteacher,” Thalia teased.

Jeremy cracked a smile. “Nah, that would be Lord Green. He sneered so much when Jake’s feet got within a pace of each other when he was dismissed, I thought I was going to die.”

Thalia picked up a ruler off the desk of the person behind Jeremy, Officer Reyes, an older and much more senior officer.

“Hey!” Reyes protested.

Thalia squinted up her eyes and slapped the ruler on her hand as she walked with perfect foot stance but also like she had a stick in her butt, which was an uncanny copy of Lord Green’s walk, and leaned down to measure the distance between Officer Brink’s feet when she was trying to walk by.

Everyone in that section of the office had a good laugh at that.

Of course, Dillinger told Thalia to stop, and also that Campbell needed her, so she gave Reyes his ruler back.

When she returned with a sleek black case holding her reward for the solving of the case, and a fresh case file, she looked... deep in thought.

“How was it?”

“Campbell gave me a double reward... just said that it was because I was mocking Lord Green.”

“I don’t think he likes Green much... Green himself assigned me my undercover case, not Campbell, even though he was sitting right there. I don’t think they’re on great terms with each other.”

“You know, they think Campbell leaked the story himself... wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Really?” Jeremy asked, intrigued.

“Yeah, the article is written like an interview with him... and a reporter came a couple days ago about Brandon and the shootout... she didn’t talk to anyone but him.”

“Huh.”

________________

Dillinger bright him a box containing the clothes Jeremy had put in for a request for late the next day, right as Jeremy was about to leave.

“Campbell sent this to you... what’s in it?” Dillinger asked. 

Officer Dillinger’s confidence was shaken when Campbell did not give him this mission, and he was insecure and curious.

“Just some things,” Jeremy said coyly, taking the box with him and his other stuff before leaving the office.

When he opened the box at home that evening, he found the backpack he’d wanted, but also three shirts, two pairs of pants, some common, worn in boots, and two pairs of worn white socks, a common E-11 firearm, a set of blue eye contacts, several vacuum sealed packets of dried fruit and 1200 credits. Perfect. 1200 credits couldn’t buy shit, but that’s all most street rats had on them at any given time.

And that would be all that Dyhin Lopal had on him.

He spent his last day at the office before the mission began wrapping up any little things that needed to be done first, checked in with Campbell for permission to proceed, and he left the obelisk knowing he would not be back for a good while.

Excellent. Save for Thalia and Officer Mell, he wouldn’t miss it.

Finally, he changed out of his police outfit and into an upper class outfit before he left his apartment, and he changed his outfit to his undercover garb in an alley before torching his other clothes.

He stomped out the fire in his much more comfortable but uncannily loose common boots, put on the contacts, and became Dyhin Lopal.

It was time to fuck some shit up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblr is @nbchristinecanigula!


	3. three

Jeremy had expected that he would be admitted into the Yellow Jade quickly, but not quite _this_ quickly.

After two days of petty thievery and some small stunts, and then four days of pretending to be starving in an alleyway, a short figure in all black approaches him.

The figure had that veiled head covering pinned to a black collared cargo shirt, long sleeved, with a smooth black jacket over it and zipped up three quarters of the way. The cargo shirt had breast pockets and probably more at the waist, and the jacket was tight, but probably had a concealed pocket or two.

The figure had tight black pants, definitely with several concealed pockets, and those uncanny PPD boots, those all too familiar titanium toes. 

The only non black article of clothing was a yellow armband with a four pointed jade green diamond sewn to the centre.

The figure was short, standing only about 5’3, perhaps 5’4.

“You hungry, kid?” The figure asked. It was a woman, with a strong Kyna accent, yet mixed with a Jersey accent. The Kyna Sector was in the Southern Hemisphere, near the South Pole, and Jersey was very close to here, in the North Western Hemisphere. He wondered where she had been raised.

But since she seemed to maybe be a Jersey native, he quickly switched from the planned Jersey accent to a safer Equa accent. Equa was further south, a fast paced and quick dialect with a’s and i’s sounding the same, like e’s.”

“A little bit,” Jeremy said quietly, nailing the accent perfectly on the first try.

The girl cautiously tapped her feet in a small circle, studying him with her head titled.

“C’mon. You mind eating with a gang?”

“Yellow Jade? They saved my mother from being arrested one day, I have nothing but respect.” Equa were always quick to bring up past good doing by others if it came up, always eager to pay it back and offer gratitude.

“Oh, yeah? C’mon, Equa, let’s go somewhere the cops don’t even know about, we’ll get something in you.”

The girl led him to an abandoned shopping mall in the Uga Sector, which had gone out of business during the recession, boarded up and forgotten.

But not by the Yellow Jade, apparently, because the girl led him to a particular piece of wood boarding up an entryway, that flapped up, allowing them to crawl under.

She sat him down by an abandoned brick planter, before scurrying off to get food. 

It was a bit of a shock, seeing this huge abandoned mall, a true affect of the recession that the PPD would refuse to admit existed.

But was this a Yellow Jade stronghold? Jeremy doubted that. Possibly, it was just a place they took people to give them shelter and food.

They truly were do gooders.

“Here, we have a little something,” the girl said, walking back with tiny yet quick steps, handing him a vacuum sealed packet of dried fruit and chidia juice. Vacuum sealed dried fruit was the most common food on the streets, followed closely by instant noodles. Chidia juice, made from a tart, plump purple fruit with a tough rind, was also very common.

“Thank you so much,” Jeremy said, gobbling down the food, hoping to give off the vibe that he hadn’t eaten in days. He had worked through the dried fruit in his backpack in secret, so he was fine, although not as well fed as usual.

“You can stay here as long as you want... plenty of people use this for camping out off the streets, nobody official ever comes here. I’m guessing you’re not originally from here?”

“No... Equa, and I lived in Nbootui for awhile. I’m new in town,” Jeremy said. Nbootui was the fourth largest city on Pyros, relatively crime ridden, and full of Yellow Jade members.

“Yeah, you have the look of an Equa who didn’t know what was coming about you,” the girl laughed. “What’s your name, Equa? If you’re comfortable sharing, that is.”

That was both a joke and a genuine concern; Equa were quick to introduce themselves, but street rats and in general the poorer people of Kian didn’t introduce themselves unless they had to, and when they did they used false names often. 

“Call me... Kell Trayvis,” Jeremy said, pretending to hesitate so the girl would think he was trying to think up a fake name.

The girl nodded. “You can call me Kitty. Holler if you need anything.”

And the girl- _Kitty_ skittered off... just like a cat.

No wonder they called her Kitty. But it was a stroke of incredible luck that the first Yellow Jade he’d come in contact with was Kitty.

Maybe this wouldn’t be as hard as he thought.

He heard someone else entering, someone wearing heels, and he turned, expecting to see another Yellow Jade, but instead he was met with the sight of a secretary type woman.

She was short, with warm medium brown skin, small, angular eyes, behind green framed cat eye glasses. She was wearing a navy pencil skirt, regulation for secretaries or women working at the obelisk below the 12th floor, and also common dress for female newspaper reporters. 

On the top was an impeccably starched white button down, long sleeved, tucked into her skirt, and the heels were pumps, red, polished and shiny and making the clicking noise.

The only thing looking not regulation about her was her hair. It was thick, jet black, and frizzing out of a messy low ponytail. Regulation said ponytails had to be between three and five inches above the nape of the neck, and above that it had to be a bun. Regulation also said every hair must be in place, and that sure wasn’t happening either. 

The messy hair and the pinched expression were accomplished in making the woman look stressed and tired, overworked, perhaps.

“You don’t have the look of these streets about you, Madam Secretary,” Jeremy teased as she got closer. Equa were quick to poke fun or tease in a lighthearted and good natured manner.

“I am a _reporter,_ for your information,” the woman said, a bit of a snap in her tone.

“Oh? Don’t jobs down there pay nice fine stacks of cash and credits?” Again, an Equa tease, all in good fun.

But the woman did not seem to be taking it in good fun.

“Enough to pay my rent and dry cleaners, not enough for food,” she snapped.

Jeremy held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, hey, not a judger.”

“Course... you’re just an Equa... one of the jokesters,” the woman said, sitting primly on the edge of the planter.

“Oh, Chrissy, I have brought thou grub!” Jeremy heard Kitty call from across the way, scurrying over to hand ‘Chrissy’ a vacuum packet of dried fruit, just like the one he had gotten, and the chidia juice.

“Fruit again? I mean, beggars can’t be choosers, but I thought that the donation-“

“All in good time, we’re working on securing some fresh fruit and some exotic foods from Lyko.”

“Exotic? From Lyko?” Chrissy laughed.

“Isn’t Lyko where all the food is brown and has the slightest spiciness to it? Had it once back at school on Foreign Food Day, wasn’t a fan,” Jeremy added.

“Equas have Foreign Food Day? Thought your food was already foreign,” Chrissy joked.

“To Kianians,” Jeremy said.

“It’s better than dried fruit and instant noodles, is it not?” Kitty asked, pretending to be outraged, hands on her hips.

“You have me there,” Jeremy laughed.

“Agreed,” Chrissy said.

“It should be here in three or four days... we have Bloody Mary getting it to us, so we know it’ll be guaranteed.”

Either the Yellow Jade were stupid and the PPD too cautious, or they were actually cunning and the PPD very, very stupid. 

Because Bloody Mary? She was a space pirate. Leeching supplies from almost every shipment of note coming to Pyros, selling stolen jewels and more precious cargo for supplies like ship parts, tools, and most often, food and shelter equipment. She was not a Yellow Jade member as far as the PPD knew, but ran supply jobs for them often. The PPD didn’t know her real name or her ship’s tracking number, or even her real appearance. She was a ghost, a phantom.

Okay, maybe it had been snap judgment. Bloody Mary was well known, and well known to work with the Yellow Jade. Anyone, Jade or not, would know about Bloody Mary supplying them.

But he had stumbled upon Kitty as his first Yellow Jade member, so maybe the PPD was just stupid to have not done this undercover mission sooner. 

Jeremy stayed in the mall, long after Chrissy left, and saw two other Yellow Jade members, whose ‘names’ he learned by listening, Crumbcakes and Tron. 

Crumbcakes was obviously a reference to Parliament’s rationing of five crumbcakes a day to citizens with income under 150,000,000 credits a year, to make sure they didn’t starve or rebel. An insane number, 150,000,000, but inflation was insane too. 

And Tron was a reference to the JumboTrons all over Kian, delivering advertisments and government information simply by looking at screens on buildings. Thought an excellent PR move by the Parliament, but thought as simply a display of wealth by the lower class.

When Crumbcakes and Tron had left the area, Kitty came back to him, holding two grey blankets rolled up together, and handed it to him.

“Here, have this for the night. We have a crop of injured people here tonight, we can’t spare a cot.”

“I am grateful for even this much... and I owe you a debt for it all,” Jeremy said kindly.

Kitty giggled. “Oh, the Equa.”

“No, I’m not kidding. Your kind saved my mother from arrest in Nbootui, and rescued me from the streets here, gave me food and shelter and warmth. I must repay the debt, and I could perhaps do the same onto others.”

“Soo... you wanna join. Is that it?” Kitty asked.

“Indeed,” Jeremy confirmed, having to remind himself not to hold his breath.

Kitty took a breath. “I’ll talk to J.J., see what we can do. Goodnight, Kell.”

And with that, she was off, and Jeremy could unroll his blankets and consider this day a huge step forward in his mission. 

Kitty was going to talk to J.J.


	4. four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one’s just. jeremy bein smexy.

Kitty introduced him more formally to Crumbcakes and Tron, and another member, Sapphire. Sapphire was apparently a very high ranking individual. She was tall, lanky, and Jeremy spotted a bit of blonde hair under her head covering.

Sapphire gave him his uniform, with those goddamn PPD boots, and the shirt, pants, armband, and head covering.

“The goal is for nobody to see your face, nobody to know your name, nobody to even know if you’re a woman or man,” Sapphire explained, as she showed him how to wear the head covering. 

It was all one piece, one long black piece of fabric (three point four feet long) the same material the pants were made of. Attached to one end was the sheer black veil, dark enough for nobody to see your face but that you could see out of, and two pins with that same jade green diamond shape on them were sewn onto the bottom of the veil to be pinned into the collar of the shirt, but also two on either side, at about nose level.

The back piece was wrapped around one’s head twice and then knotted tightly, and the tail left hanging or tucked in. The front piece was then secured over the face by the pins, and the back piece was pinned to the front piece on the sides.

Credit where credit was due, this was a pretty good ensemble, even if he hated those stupid fucking PPD boots.

“Where’d you get these boots? They look pretty high quality.”

“Pyros Police Department boots... we have a contact on the inside who has a contact in the factory who leeches some boots from the factories when they visit, marks them defective and gets them to us,” Sapphire said.

“Really? Is the middleman a high ranking official?” Jeremy asked.

“Eh, who knows. We just know they exist,” Kitty said.

“And now... I’ll show you how to put on that armband, our secret methodology. Only Yellow Jade members know this,” Sapphire said conspiratorially.

Jeremy was confused for a moment, since it just looked like a regular armband, until Sapphire laughed and just pulled the armband up to his upper arm. 

“Kidding with you, Equa,” Sapphire giggled.

Sapphire was... an interesting individual. Judging by her accent, she was most likely from Tiger Sector, a very wealthy sector in the northeastern Hemisphere, the second wealthiest sector, home to Gemstone, a very large city.

Her mannerisms painted her as an individual who was completely at ease, almost... too at ease. Like she would be a loose cannon for the Jade. Easy to get secrets from.

Maybe Kitty knew more than she was letting on about the contact in the PPD, and she had shut Sapphire down before she could spill more. She had glanced at Sapphire after she’d said nobody knew who the contact really was... so Sapphire knew not to continue.

He would try and make quick work out of Sapphire. Maybe seduce her...? Girls said he was a twink all the time, Thalia had even told him that if he was a girl she’d be into him, that he had a really cute butt.

Whatever it took to get Sapphire to spill.

______________

As a new member, Jeremy was left in the mall, but moved to a different section, where more members lived, generally seeming like new members like him. Sapphire personally escorted him to the new section of the mall.

“How many people do you recruit like me? Just on the fly, people you help, join like me?”

“Oh, tons. So, so many,” Sapphire said, almost gushing. “Obviously, you’re our most recent recruit, at least in Kian... oh! You’ll have to think of a codename for yourself!”

Sapphire was a ditzy rich girl from Tiger, for sure.

“Oh? Maybe you could help me with that, Miss Sapphire,” Jeremy said, in what he hoped was a sexy voice. How would he know? He was a virgin, despite how much people told him he was hot.

Including Campbell.

“Well... you’re certainly very cute... we could call you Cutiepie,” Sapphire said.

Woo, _this_ was a Tiger girl. That was a Tiger girl’s pickup line if he ever heard one.

“You’re from Tiger sector, aren’t you?” Jeremy asked.

“Oh, is it that obvious?” Sapphire said in mock dismay, twirling a piece of her long beach blonde hair that had fallen out of her head covering.

“I don’t know... I kinda like it,” Jeremy said.

“Weeeell... what about Mister Danger?” Sapphire asked.

“Because I’m dangerously close to stealing your heart?” Jeremy said boldly, but it was exactly the response Sapphire wanted.

He knew she was blushing like a little girl under that covering.

“Well, I think my codename should be Shadow... because I sneak around real nice.”

Sapphire laughed. “You think that name isn’t taken already? We walk around in all black, Kell.”

“Well, Sapphire... how about Wolf? That’s pretty intimidating,” Jeremy said.

“That could work! I don’t think anyone else has that name, Ke- ooo, I guess I mean Wolf.”

“Yeah... but spell it with double Fs and an E.”

“Or we just call you Double F Wolf,” Sapphire said.

“I guess that works... whatever you want, Miss Saph.”

Sapphire giggled like a little schoolgirl. 

Ooh, Jeremy was _so_ in.

He chatted with some other members once Sapphire had left, and quickly discovered that two other people had joined just that day, and the bulk of them had joined that week. One girl who called herself Somon had joined ten days ago and expected to be moved very soon.

Jeremy chatted especially with a girl named Glimmer, who was a Tiger girl even more than Sapphire was.

She was shorter than Sapphire, but undoubtedly had a very nice bikini body under the cargo shirt and tight pants, with the way she moved herself like she was used to be moving on a hot beach with hot guys.

She was clearly out of her element without getting to flaunt her body, and was desperate to have sex. So she floundered a bit on Jeremy when she saw him and found out by his voice he was a guy, and gushed, and offered him a lap dance, which he declined.

The only help Glimmer could be is if he could make Sapphire jealous, especially since they were both from Tiger and he was the hot guy, they were the hot girls. She was too new to have any good information.

If he’d known there would be so many Tiger girls here, maybe he wouldn’t have gone with the people pleasing, gracious Equa. Oh well, everyone seemed to think he was the absolute Equa stereotype and all the Tiger girls were living up to their stereotype.

He lived in that room of the mall for a week, helping distribute food to the other people in the mall who weren’t Yellow Jade, giving him a sense of what the Yellow Jade were. Stealing from the rich who had too much, giving it to the poor who had too little.

It was beautiful, actually.

After a week of distributing vacuum sealed packets of dried fruit and instant noodles, Kitty came to get him and Glimmer for something.

“We’re going with a couple of others to unload Bloody Mary’s shipment. She brought food from Lyko and fresh fruits and veggies from Ryloph. Hope you’re ready for some walking and appearing non suspicious while still flaunting those Yellow Jade armbands,” she explained.

The group consisted of ten people, and they were to take three hovercraft speeders with flatbed trailers to the secondary spaceport of Kian. It had less security because there was less traffic, perfect for unloading illegal shipments.

The hovercraft Jeremy rode in had both Glimmer and Sapphire, but Sapphire was not in her Yellow Jade uniform. Instead, she was in a very thick, rich-y rich white dress and a hooded red cloak, high heels, and a fancy watch. The only bit that was Yellow Jade was her head covering.

“What’s this getup, Saph?” Jeremy asked sexily.

“I’m not unloading the shipment, I’m getting dropped off and I’m going to go sell to a couple men in the neon district. We... stealthily obtained this outfit, and I’m going to sell it off my body, strip down to my underwear when they purchase pieces,” Sapphire said in an equally seductive voice. “Watch, dress, cloak, and shoes are all for sale. You’re going to meet me later, after the shipment is back at home base, and pick me up.”

“So you stole it?” Jeremy asked.

Sapphire scoffed. “I’m not a thief... I’m just good at acquiring things that are not mine. Anyway, I’m going to strip in the part of the diner that isn’t the strip club.”

“Wish I could watch,” Jeremy said.

Glimmer scoffed quietly. Jeremy noticed, but Sapphire didn’t seem to.

Ugh. Tiger girls.

The guy driving the hovercraft, Ryder, took a turn when all the other hovercrafts went straight, and dropped Sapphire off at a cute little strip club disguised as a cute little diner, in the style common on Pyros before the 2nd Pyro-Ertan War.

Sapphire blew Jeremy a kiss as she stepped out and sashayed to the door, turning and giving him a dramatic pose at the door before walking in.

She was probably trained as a fashion model before she joined the Jade.

“Ugh. Slutty much?” Glimmer complained, as Ryder turned the hovercraft around to catch up with the others.

“I like _you_ how you are,” Jeremy said. Ryder glanced back at Jeremy, and although Jeremy couldn’t see his expression, he knew Ryder was giving him a look of _Really? Playing two Tiger girls at once?_

Jeremy subtly shrugged back at him, and Glimmer draped her arm over Jeremy protectively.

When they reached the spaceport spot where the other two hovercrafts were, Jeremy had to stop and marvel at the ship.

People who’d encountered Bloody Mary’s ship raved about the insane paint job and the pilot’s quick manoeuvres, but Jeremy had never seen it in person.

It was a modified cargo ship, with two four barrels cannons added to the usual two two barrel cannons that the model came with. While the modifications made it hard to exactly tell what it was, he concluded that it was probably a YETERLITe-5569. Roomy cargo hold, plenty of crew cabins that could be converted to more cargo space.

The paint job, though, was something to behold. It had a bright purple base with pink streaks drawn from a point at the cockpit, green flames painted over the bottom, yellow half moons on the top.

A six foot tall portrait on the starboard side was mostly black and white, a bust portrait of a woman with a long, slender neck, ash white skin, and sleek black hair wrapped around her head in a bob.

The only colour was a red slash across her neck, and her inaccurately rouged lips.

It was Bloody Mary’s ship all right.

“Okay, get to work, slackers!” Kitty teased, carrying a crate with a tall girl in an immaculate uniform to one of the hovercraft.

Jeremy went to go pick up a crate, and even if Glimmer was a Tiger girl, she could lift like a pro. The crates were big enough to fit a teenager in, and a lot of them didn’t have hovercraft capabilities, since they were all pretty old, probably manufactured during the 2nd Pyro-Ertan War. 

The pair carried crates to the hovercrafts, and nothing about the scene seemed out of place in the port at all. Plenty of other people were unloading ships, just none of them were unloading them onto hovercrafts with flatbed trailers. And none of them were also Yellow Jade members.

The only people of note were the Yellow Jade members he was with, until he caught sight of a woman in a bright purple cargo pants and a red halter top lined with fool’s diamonds.

She was large, dark brown skin, average height for a woman, around 5’5, and wide, probably a size 16W. She was curvy and big, and obviously proud of it. She had a purple mask over her mouth, decorated with more fool’s diamonds. Her hair was bright, flaming red, curled loosely and left down, flowing down her shoulders in big, floppy curls. She wore heeled pink boots, studded with rhinestones and sequins, and white silk elbow length gloves with red fingers completed her look.

This was Bloody Mary.

It amazed Jeremy to no end that the security guards here were so lax that they allowed Yellow Jade and Bloody Mary to openly conduct business here.

They’d have to all be fired when Jeremy returned to the PPD and turned in his report.

“Hurry it on up, J.J! I don’t have all day!” Bloody Mary yelled, helping a skinnier girl lift a crate to a flatbed.

“J.J. isn’t here, Mary!” Kitty shouted back from the cargo hold.

“Oh, really?” Mary asked.

“Mmhm,” Sapphire shouted.

After all the crates were unloaded, Kitty took a black leather briefcase out of the hovercraft she had ridden in and handed it to Mary.

Mary flipped it open and touched her pointer finger to where her bottom lip was under her mask, and traced it over the contents of the case. Clearly, it was full of cash and credits.

“You don’t think this is it, do you, Kit?” Mary asked.

Kitty laughed. “Just testing you, Mary.” She unzipped a pocket in her pants, left leg, calf level, revealing a stack of cash inside. She pulled it out and handed it to Mary.

“Now that’s more like it, sweetheart,” Mary said, thumbing through the cash and setting it in the briefcase.

Kitty said something to Mary that Jeremy couldn’t make out, and then Mary took one credit out of the case- a 100 credit piece - and handed it to Kitty.

“Here’s my federal taxes. Now give this to J.J., give her my regards.”

“Of course, Mary. I expect we’ll be seeing you again with the shipment in two weeks? Or will you be late again, like today?”

Mary held up her gloved hands. “Girl, it ain’t my fault that some Florian pirates came to settle a score out on Lyko! I did the best I could with what I had,” she protested.

“If you say so,” Kitty joked, shaking Mary’s hand dramatically and turning away, taking her small, light, cat like steps back to the hovercraft.

“Tell J.J. and Two I said hi!” Mary called, turning to head back into her ship.

“Will do, Missy Mary!” Kitty called back, starting the engine of her hovercraft and speeding away.

“Let’s go drop this all off and go pick up Sapphire,” Ryder said, starting the engine of their craft and following in Kitty’s tracks.

___________________

They found Sapphire draped over a booth in the diner/strip club, naked except for her underwear and head covering, dangling the watch sexily in front of an enamoured man. “Only twenty five hundred credits, mister,” she drawled seductively.

To make themselves look normal, Jeremy, Ryder, and Glimmer sat down at the counter to order something to eat.

The waitress, her name tag denoting her as Selli, held up a platter of a canned meat and cheese ribbon loaf for the group. “Gettin’ rid of these duds, I can offer it to you for only thirteen hundred credits.” Her medium brown skin crinkled, nose scrunching at the platter, which wasn’t good marketing.

“That’s pricey for what that is, canned meat and cheap, local cheese,” Ryder protested. “I’ll give you eight hundred for it, how about that?”

“Hah! Fat chance. How about twelve hundred?” Selli countered, tossing her stick straight brown hair behind her shoulders, blowing her bangs out of her face.

“A thousand credits, final offer, or I won’t eat your canned meat crap,” Ryder said, setting the credits down on the counter as he spoke.

“Alright, alright. A thousand it is,” Selli conceded, setting down the tray, and reaching under the counter to retrieve a packet of saltine crackers, which she tossed onto the table. “Helps with the taste, working through the last of our Recession goods.”

Parliament, in addition to crumbcakes, had sent citizens crackers, instant noodles, and dried fruit packets, which is why they were so common on the streets. They were even sometimes used for bartering. 

Ryder opened the crackers and passed them out, and the three ate in silence as Sapphire sold off the watch after some posing against a neon light display on the wall of angel wings and puffing her lips.

Finally, Sapphire, in only her head covering and underwear, joined the three at the counter, helping them polish off the platter.

“Thought this place was half strip club?” Jeremy asked, daintily depositing a cracker into his mouth.

“Yeah. That’s in the back. It’s an up charge attraction,” Selli said, smiling, revealing her two missing teeth. “Fifteen hundred credits entry.”

“Jeesh. Pricey,” Glimmer said. “And for that content? It’s not worth it at all.”

“You don’t wanna pay up, don’t go in, Tiger girl. Finish your crackers.”

“Gotta love the Parliament,” Glimmer remarked, popping a cracker in her mouth. 

“All hail Queen Rhesh,” Ryder added.

Jeez. Jeremy hadn’t thought the Queen was quite this unpopular, but what did he expect? They were a gang of anti government criminals, of course they didn’t like the Queen.”

“We use her for a dartboard around here,” Selli smiled, pointing to something behind them.

The required portrait of the Queen in every building was cut in a circle, framed, and a dartboard was drawn on it. The bullseye was right between her pale green eyes.

The Queen didn’t look like anything but a kind, pretty young woman in the official portrait. She was only thirty five years old, but was twenty when the picture was taken. Her long, curly red hair framed her angular face, of creamy, flawless pale skin, wide set pale green eyes. She wore a sky blue hat, set at an angle, with a purple flower on the brim. Her bodice was tight, leaving much cleavage displayed, and it was purple, studded with emeralds and sapphires and rubies.

Okay, maybe it was a bit of a showy portrait. 

“Hey, two hundred credits for twenty darts, eh?” Ryder asked.

“Yep, I give you your money back and a little extra if you hit the bullseye twice,” Selli said.

Ryder took the darts from Selli, squinted his eyes, and let loose.

He hit the bullseye five times, and Selli handed him back the two hundred credits, and doubled it with credits from under the counter.

“And that’s why you’re our sniper guy. Let’s go,” Sapphire said.

“See you around, Selli,” Jeremy said seductively.

Glimmer and Sapphire both made grabby moves towards him on the ride back.


	5. five

Jeremy had been promoted to someone who lived in the second level of the mall, running supply missions and some small other missions. Sapphire taught him how to pilot a spacecraft, and he flew one on a mission to attack a Pyronian cruiser with a shipment of weapons leaving the wooded planet of Lidasan. 

They chased the ship through the woods of the planet, green rainforest with green tree trunks turning to regular forest with brown tree trunks, where they successfully shot it down, and everyone onboard seemed to have escaped in escape pods.

“Don’t shoot the pods, let them go,” Sapphire directed, as the stared at the ship burning on the forest floor. From this distance, it looked like a campfire.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Jeremy said, turning around to climb up into the atmosphere and into open space to line up for a jump to light speed.

When they returned back to port in Kian on Pyros, Kitty was there with a hovercraft speeder to meet the crew and take them back, and she ran up to meet them at the door, limping heavily.

Kitty hurried the five of them onto the hovercraft speeder, urging them on as the five of them picked up the pace. Jeremy, Sapphire, and Glimmer, as well as two he hadn’t met before this, Ethea and Torch.

“C’mon, hurry up. We gotta get back, J.J.’s waiting,” Kitty said.

“What? Did something happen?” Torch asked. He was a heavyset, older man, who wore two Yellow Jade armbands rather than one.

“Yeah. Something happened. C’mon,” was all Kitty said.

Back at the mall, Sapphire and Glimmer hurried away immediately, and Kitty took the rest of them to what had once been the food court of the mall.

A shit ton of Yellow Jade members were gathered there, probably the entire Kianian group, besides any who were off on missions or elsewhere on the planet. 

A couple of old tables were stacked up, creating a stage like area in the centre of the room, that everyone was gathered around.

“What’s happening?” Jeremy asked Kitty.

“Jade and Two are about to give a briefing... guess I’d better go join them,” Kitty said, hurrying away.

What wowed him was her exit. Despite her heavy limp, Kitty walked to and then leaped onto a stray chair, and from there, leaped up to a beam. She grabbed hold of the beam and swung from it onto the next one, swinging, leaping, and somersaulting in the air until she stuck a landing on all fours at the centre of the stage.

And just as she landed there, two figures climbed up onto the stage behind her.

One tall, the other average height. Kitty moved to the far left, the average height one to the far right, and the tall one in the middle.

“For those of you who have heard about Sheriff Campbell and our suspected involvement, know simply that this is not true!” The tall one spoke loudly, projecting her voice across the room.

“For those who have not learned of this,” the figure on the far right began, projecting just like the tall one, “Sheriff Campbell was kidnapped off the streets on his way home, walking down the street, and the Yellow Jade are suspected by the media. This is not true! We would never do something like that. Our mission, you all know: to take from those who have too much and give to those who have not enough!”

A cheer rose up in the crowd, and the three people onstage waited until they died down before any of them spoke.

This time, it was Kitty.

“I have with me a street sign, taken from the street Sheriff Campbell was kidnapped on. It was used to bludgeon me brutally by a group of upper class citizens. They were looking for an excuse to attack us, and now they have it.” So that was why Kitty was limping.

A member from the base of the stage handed up a large pole. On it were two signs, a large red one on the top reading ‘PARE’, and one at the middle, reading ‘NO DRONE ZONE.’

Pare meant ‘Please halt’ in Syntian, the language of the nearby planet of Synthia. There was a community of Synthians on the east side of Kian, in the Lake sector which was far from where Campbell lived. He lived on the other side of town, in the Diamond Sector, next door to the Crown sector, where the royals lived.

So why was Campbell down there? And why had he been walking?

“This sign was used to hit me, over and over again, until I collapsed and pretended that I fainted. The upper class citizens wanted an excuse to hurt us, and they have it. Exercise caution not only on the streets of Kian, but also anywhere you go. Perhaps now is not the time to go around in full uniform, either. Cover your faces with veils, keep a low profile, don’t wear your armbands or your boots if possible,” Kitty said, holding up the sign post with the two signs on it like a triumphant warrior with her sword.

A disgruntled cry went up in the crowd, and Jeremy realised two things.

One, the disgruntlement among the people was not disgruntlement with their leaders, but disgruntlement and displeasure with the government, the recent events. They were completely loyal to their leaders, the people on the makeshift stage.

Two, the leaders on the stage were Jade and Two. Jade was the taller one, Two the one of average height.

Jackpot. He’d approach them after this, tell them about how it was odd that Sheriff Campbell had been that far from home, and not even on a speeder bike. He could gain notoriety and perhaps some more status among the Yellow Jade, and maybe even, with any luck, be sent with a high ranking official to investigate in the Lake sector.

This was his big break, this was what would get him into the big leagues with this gang.

And indeed, after the meeting, he pushed through the crowd and hurried over to the stage, grabbing Jade by her shoulder as she was walking off.

She cried out in surprise and turned around, looking ready to punch him. Jeremy, for his part, stumbled back, surprised.

Jade relaxed slightly, seeing that he was only just another member. “What is it?”

“I am Double F Wolf... I have some suspicions about our dear Sheriff Campbell being in the Lake Sector. He lives in Diamond, you know.”

Jade nodded. “Come with us,” she said.


	6. six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooooo

Jeremy followed the trio away, out of the food court. The three women walked briskly, at a pace forcing Jeremy to actually walk fast, almost at PPD regulation speed when walking to a formal meeting. He wished he could’ve walked slower, he hated walking this fast, it reminded him of his endless days running errands and paperwork in that stupid obelisk.

The three led the way, going up the motionless moving staircase and winding through the second floor and up another set of broken moving stairs, until finally they approached a closed door. There was a keypad on the wall next to it, and Kitty pressed in a code, making the door open automatically.

The three stepped inside, and allowed Jeremy to come in behind them before they closed the door behind them.

The room was empty, except for a metal desk with three chairs, two on one side and one on the other. A painting was on the wall, a mess of textured, colourful paints.

Jade reached behind the painting, revealing a small cubby in the wall behind it, with a keypad on it. She entered a code, and it flashed green.

After it flashed, Jade removed the painting from the wall and flipped it over, revealing a small, angular key taped to the underside. The painting nearly glowed as it moved around in the dim light, revealing that it was painted with Kylanian pain. 

The Kylianians made paint that glowed when dried and the painted object was moved around, although it was notoriously thin when wet and unbearably thick and hole ridden when dried. 

Also on the underside of the painting, Jeremy noticed a small, handwritten note, that he just barely was able to read before Jade hung the painting back up and pushed the key into a small key hole under the keypad.

 _I wasn’t expecting this when she invited me to the park,_ it read. 

Below the note there was a hand drawn picture of a skull and crossbones.

After the key was put in, the keypad flashed blue, and the cubby in the wall was pushed out, filling the hole in the wall, and then the whole wall swung out, inwards into another room.

The four filed into it, a smaller, completely empty room, with walls painted black, the only object another keypad.

Two entered a code, and the wall swung closed behind them, and a surprisingly bright bar light flickered on above them.

Another keypad flickered on on the other side of the room, previously dark and unnoticed, blending into the wall, with its keys black until lit up, when they glowed blue and green.

Jade put in yet another password, and the wall again flung outwards into another room.

This one was full of stuff. Three three point five six point tall angel statues were the first thing that met his eye, up on a shelf on the back wall of this room. 

The entire room was larger than all the previous rooms combined. The walls were painted hot pink, and a small red sofa sat primly in the room, pushed up against a wall. Five buzzing bar lights lit the room, and a picture of two people wearing masks kissing hung over the sofa.

Jeremy had no doubt that there was something under the picture. Perhaps another cubby, but not the key to another room. This was likely it.

The picture was in black and white, likely taken during the Parasite Plague, over a hundred years ago, when a plague had spread from a termite hill in the Burla Sector, far, far west from here. 

The two were obviously posing, the picture was not a candid. Perhaps they were royal family members? It was hard to tell.

The angels caught his eye again when he moved his gaze away from the picture. The angels were intricately painted in shades of white, blue, red, and gold, and Jeremy knew they were somehow significant.

The two on the right had golden wings, spread slightly, their hands folded in prayer. One had brunette hair and a red dress, the other a blue dress and red hair.

The other one, set slightly apart from the two, had her wings folded at her back, and wore a white dress. She held a blue and gold shawl and looked up to the ceiling in a silent plea for help. She stood on a white and blue cloud, two baby cherubs at her feet.

“Taken from a temple right before it was gutted and and turned into an office building,” Kitty explained, noticing him looking.

“My mother painted them,” Two added in a soft voice. 

Clearly, her mom was dead.

“Small talk over, we’re in a pressing situation. Tell us what you know,” Jade said, turning around to face Jeremy.

“Sheriff Campbell lives in the Diamond sector, like all the rest of the officials ranking as high as he does... the Lake sector is clear on the other side of town. And he usually goes out on a speeder bike if nothing else, more often than not his personal enclosed luxury hovercraft speeder. My aunt is in the PPD, I know quite a bit,” Jeremy explained.

“Good. Tell us more,” Jade ordered . “Any reason you can think of why the Sheriff would’ve been over there?”

“Maybe personally attending a big deal arrest? But then, he wouldn’t have gone alone, and so openly. And still, he wouldn’t have walked.”

“Interesting,” Jade said. “How do you know all this?”

“Like I said, my aunt’s in the PPD. She tells me this shit.”

“Two, I need a map of the area,” Jade ordered.

Two walked across the room and lifted up the angel with the red dress from the shelf, revealing a secret compartment with a rolled up piece of paper inside. She pulled it out and placed the angel back on the shelf.

She unrolled it on the floor, everyone kneeling down to sit with her on the floor. 

It was a map, a map of Kian. Every street, every sector, labelled immaculately. Clearly handmade. 

“There, that’s the road he was on,” Two said, pointing to a specific road.

With a red marker she pulled out of a jacket pocket, she circled the road she had pointed to on the map.

“Hmm,” Kitty said. “Two, what’s the evaluation?” She asked.

Two rocked back on her heels and pushed up her left sleeve, revealing a small wrist computer, a bright red frame surrounding the blue screen. A TAY ZEE Series Cherry Eleven Wrist Computer In Cherry Red Paint. HoloNet connection, an old enough model that nobody would be tracking it, the tracking numbers would’ve expired years ago, and nothing Two searched would show up in the PPD databases, nor would the location of the unit. It was off the books, considered obsolete.

Two double tapped the screen, waited a few seconds, and then triple tapped, and the screen lit up.

A Few seconds of her quickly typing something into the screen, perhaps entering in a passcode and pulling up a document, and then the holo projector on the computer whirred to life and projected a scanned document.

“Sheriff Campbell took the Tunnel to Lake Sector Station, got off, walked down Southeastern West Bearing Tyyhra Road until he was nabbed by three figures in black, who disarmed him, knocked him out, and dragged him away,” Two reported, reading the High Pyronian script.

Pyros had two writing scripts, one used by almost everyone, Basic Pyronian, and High Pyronian, learned only by government officials and high ranking, upper class individuals. Most important documents were written in High Pyronian.

“Where’d you get this?” Jeremy asked.

“An article on the HoloNet,” Two responded.

“Oh, yeah ... never been on the HoloNet, myself,” Jeremy said, which was a flat out lie. _he_ had a HoloNet equipped computer and television in his apartment, and used a different HoloNet equipped computer all the time at work, actually every day.

But Kell Trayvis hadn’t been on the HoloNet.

“It’s an article from the Pyros Daily. Government owned, an official wrote this,” Two reported.

“I don’t know, doesn’t it seem a little... a little too official? Sure, the Daily is official government propaganda, but it seems... fake. Like the person writing it knew it was made up,” Jeremy said, studying the hologram.

“Maybe... maybe it’s falsified,” Kitty suggested.

“Wouldn’t surprise me... was he actually on Southeastern West Bearing Tyyhra Road when he got kidnapped?” Jade asked.

“Our contact in the PPD said he was,” Kitty said.

“Cool. So... entertain a hypothetical scenario for me for a second, Kitty, Two, Wolf,” Jade began. “What if... what if it’s all a PPD plot to indict some Yellow Jade on this?” 

“Wouldn’t surprise me. About time they finally started cracking down on us... we all walk around in uniforms, for Christ’s sake, we’re asking for it,” Kitty said.

“Okay. Kitty, Wolf. You two, go down to the crime scene and investigate. Disguise yourselves as civilians, show as little face as possible, but don’t do veils, too suspicious for being that close. Go immediately, come back quick,” Jade ordered.

“At once,” Kitty said.

“Wear something over your faces until you get close,” Jade said.

So if Jeremy had had any plans that night, they were now off.

He went and changed into worn out blue trousers from his backpack, and a high necked red shirt, long sleeved, waffle print, and those worn out but oddly comfortable civilian boots. He threw a green shirt over his head, tied it over his mouth and let it hang loose over his eyes, like a hood.

Hopefully, nobody recognised him.

He and Kitty took the Tunnel to the Lake Sector station, heads covered. She was wearing short red pants, long purple socks, and green boots, probably made out of dried fish skins. She had a blue green shawl shirt, where there was a shirt underneath attached to a shawl with armholes that went around the shirt like a skirt, ending at her waist.

Over her head she had a mourner’s black scarf, tied over her mouth and hooded over her eyes like Jeremy’s shirt, although Jeremy saw a bit of blue hair peeking out from the scarf.

After they got off and turned onto Southeastern West Bearing Tyyhra Road, they met a wall of PPD officers milling about, randomly asking for people’s identification cards. Luckily, he and Kitty were not asked. 

Not three hundred feet away was a five hundred foot wide and tall area of sidewalk, blocked off by crime scene tape.

The officers here meant business.

The two slipped by and crossed the road, ducking into an alleyway.

“Let’s ditch the head coverings here, we’ll get them back before we get back on the Tunnel,” Kitty said.

So Jeremy ducked his head and pulled off his shirt, excited to finally see the face of this woman he was supposed to capture.

He wasn’t expecting her to have the face of someone he knew.

It was....

He stared at her, mouth open. She, too, was startled, stumbling back a few feet.

He had barely even begun to process when she suddenly took out a gun and fucking _shot_ him.

_She shot him._

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.... I am so, so, so sorry... _Jeremy.”_

He chose to focus on the gun, rather than the face. A KZ-233 Series 1244 Handgun, small and slim, probably had been easily fit in a concealed pocket sleeve. It fired laser bolts, it was self charging. Muffled barrel, didn’t make a sound. 

The type of gun the police carried.

Kitty caught Jeremy as he collapsed, her hands clasped over the wound on his abdomen. She lowered him to the ground, tears streaking down her face.

Her hands came away bloodstained, and Jeremy stared up at her weakly, eyes half lidded.

“I’m so sorry... I’m so fucking sorry, Jeremy!” She cried.

“Why did you do it?” Jeremy asked weakly

She took a deep breath. “To make the world a better place for my daughter. And I shot you because you found out who I am... it’s habit. It won’t kill you, I swear. If it does... I’ll kill myself.”

“I could yell right now and the police would nab you,” Jeremy said, grabbing her bloodstained hands and holding them in his own.

“If you were going to do that, you already would’ve done it,” she said, squeezing his hands comfortingly. “I’m so sorry.”

“Go... I’ll wait until you’re gone.”

“You’d loose your job, Jeremy.”

“No, I wouldn’t... I’ll tell them that my cover was blown and Kitty recognised me. That I’ll nab them soon. I won’t even tell them about who you are.”

“Seriously? Jeremy... Jeremy... I shot you.”

“Go... go, Kitty... go run and get everyone out of the mall. I’m going to tell them about it... but not about you. Keep going, bitch, and get going. Now!” Jeremy ordered.

She took a deep breath and squeezed his hands one last time, before letting go of them and standing up slowly.

“I love you,” Thalia said.

“I know... go,” Jeremy said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo_


	7. seven

Jeremy spent five days in Grady Hospital, the largest hospital in Pyros. 

The PPD interviewed him feverishly about everything from his mission, up to when his cover was blown and Kitty had shot him with a stolen gun. And then, of course, he’d had to write a report on the whole thing, a summarised version and a full version, after telling a million officers the whole thing a million times over, while still recovering of a laser bolt wound.

On the day he was discharged, Officer McCarthy came to escort him home. They exchanged a look that knew that they both acknowledged what had happened, and that Thalia wasn’t just escorting him home.

She drove him home on the main roads in her enclosed police hovercraft speeder, parked at his apartment complex, and helped him into his apartment, and into his bed.

“Do you need anything?” Thalia asked, twirling a lock of hair by her ear. Clearly, she was asking if there were any bugs.

“Nah, there aren’t any. I even ran a scan from my wrist computer just now, now that I’m home,” Jeremy said. He had an officer grade wrist computer himself, that he’d gotten back in the hospital, and he scanned for bugs on private mode as they were walking up to his apartment, down the hall. Nothing.

“Look, Jeremy... I’m sorry. Really, I am... but why didn’t you capture me?” Thalia asked.

“Because... I sympathise. The Yellow Jade are a true, noble cause... we can both be double agents.”

“I believe you, but I told Jade and Two about you... they won’t be quick to trust you again. And we lost the mall.”

“Maybe they don’t want to trust me... they’ll trust me if I offer up credits and some intel. You haven’t been around Campbell as much as I have... and we can conduct an investigation on the inside. We can figure out if it’s really a setup.”

“And I have another idea, too,” Jeremy said.

“That reporter, Chrissy. Works for the Pyros Suns, eats at the mall.”

“She does. Or at least... she did.”

“I’m sorry,” Jeremy said genuinely. “But... get her to run a series of articles that are interviews with Ruby Martel. Help clear the Yellow Jade’s name in the public and give the government something to try and shut down, in vain, because the Suns is protected from the government by the Free Speech Act, while the two of us investigate on the inside.”

“You know, that’s so stupid, it might actually work,” Thalia said. “Maybe they’ll send Sapphire and Glimmer to make sure you’re true to the cause.”

“Interrogation drugs?”

“Altered ones, less cruel. But yeah. Truth serum will be used.”

“Cool, although I hate to tell Sapphire and Glimmer that I was playing them for intel.”

“Oh, they already know,” Thalia grinned. Oh, that cat’s smile. No wonder she was Kitty. It was stupid that he hadn’t figured it out.

“Oh, really?” Clearly, Thalia’s identity was not the only thing Jeremy hadn’t figured out.

“We suspected you weren’t true from the beginning. Never thought you were with the goddamn Pyros Police Department, we thought you were a pirate. Sapphire is Jade, she was there to see if she could figure out anything from me. And Two was Glimmer. Neither of them are from Tiger.”

“So I guess not even Equa sign up that fast?”

“Nope. We’d also never seen you before... which didn’t help.”

“So I was playing Sapphire and Glimmer... and Sapphire and Glimmer were playing me,” Jeremy laughed.

“Indeed they were... I’m telling you this in good faith. I trust you with everything in my soul,” Jeremy.

Jeremy was beyond grateful for that trust. Thalia had shot him, had been a double agent at the Pyros Police Department and the Yellow Jade crime syndicate slash gang slash mob, and yet he trusted her with everything in him, even thought she’d shot him, and he believed in the Yellow Jade’s cause. And the fact that Thalia believed he was telling the truth, too... meant more than anything.

He wouldn’t be the only double agent in the PPD.

“Oh! Also... I’m obviously the contact in the PPD, Jade as Sapphire pretended she was about to let slip the identity of the contact, and I pretended to shut her down. That was bait for you to ask who was the contact, and you took it. We thought for sure you were a pirate then... just trying to make quick cash and yet asking too many questions. Just like a pirate.”

Jeremy laughed heartily, but laughter turned to groans of pain as the laughing hurt the wound in his abdomen.

“I’m sorry, Jeremy,” Thalia said after he’d caught his breath. She handed him a glass of water, which he thankfully swallowed down like he hadn’t drank anything in years.

“I’m good. Seriously... I don’t blame you. I’d have done the same if I was in your position.”

“I’m never going to stop being sorry, Jeremy,” Thalia said, holding his hand.

“It’s okay, Lia. Let’s go bust some crooked cops,” he said lovingly.

“That would be the perfect ending to some dramatic thriller movie, the first in a trilogy, but no. You’re not going anywhere until you’re healed, and _then_ we’ll go bust some goddamn fucking crooked cops.”

“I love you so much,” Jeremy said.

“You are my best friend and the reason I breathe... I love you too,” Thalia said.

“Bitch, you’re the reason you’re alive. You worked your ass off to get to a seat in the office where your boss can look down and watch you, got a great income and a life perfect for raising your kid... and yet you turned back to the community to improve the world.”

Thalia smiled softly and kissed the top of his head. 

“I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooo dev when will you finish this? you ask
> 
> sometime, i answer, taking a puff on my thirty foot long pipe that i smoke grass out of


End file.
